For her high school yearbook, at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Ms. Hamilton chose a quote from the actor Zoë Tamerlis Lund, who was director Abel Ferrara’s muse and collaborated on the 1992 film “Bad Lieutenant.” According to Ms. Hamilton, Fieldston approved the choice was wrong, “because Zoe was a furious heroin addict.” But the line (“That which is not yet, but should be, is more real than that which is alone”) summed up something that Ms. Hamilton still feels. “My dreams are more real to me than my life right now,” she said.
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Ms. Hamilton attended USC’s highly competitive BFA program in theater. When she first left USC, she booked several small acting jobs, including “Dance Camp,” a YouTube Red movie directed by Bert & Bertie, aka Amber Templemore-Finlayson and Katie Ellwood. They also recently cast Ms. Hamilton opposite Florence Pugh in an upcoming episode of the Marvel series “Hawkeye”.
“There’s something about Annie that’s not of our time, like she doesn’t fit in with today’s culture in a very special way,” said artist Aria Dean, who directed Ms. Hamilton in a play in Geneva, Switzerland.
“She’s like this archetypal 1940s Hollywood type, fireworks and fast-talking, with her kind of clipped speech, a wit and audacity that you don’t see on screen these days. The one who says, ‘I’m not going to shut up, but I’m still on screen trying to get the guy.’”
Aside from “Hawkeye,” Ms. Hamilton has small roles in Shonda Rhimes’ upcoming Netflix series, “Inventing Anna,” in which she plays a movie star, and a scene with Diane Keaton in Kate Aselton’s comedy, “Mack & Rita.” “
“Annie is one of those actors who can do more than one thing,” said Cassandra Kulukundis, Paul Thomas Anderson’s casting director for films like “Magnolia,” “There Will Be Blood” and “Phantom Thread.”
